"It is important to understand the automobile as a political issue"
Paolo Tumminelli
interviewed by Alain Elkann
The automobile is a cultural phenomenon whose multiple dimensions can be experienced daily, from everyone, everywhere.
Out of a century-long interaction among vehicles, people, nature, design and architecture, an automotive culture has emerged and set new lifestyles, fashions, attitudes.
Myths have been created, promoted, consumed. Following predictions of a rapidly growing population of vehicles, life without auto-mobility seems impossible. And yet, to move forward, the myth has to be reinvented, a new automobile must follow.
Beyond the specific viewpoints of individual makers or the market value of selected models, automobile culture is a public matter that deserves to be endorsed by an open and independent institution.
To promote the heritage, monitor today and envision the future of automobility, while igniting public discourse about automotive culture, is the scope of the goodbrands institute.
The independent researching, consulting and publishing organization has been founded 2007 in Cologne, Germany and directed by professor Paolo Tumminelli.
Projects: mindset, pioneering a new breed of cars; Save the Panda! (Rettet den Panda!) endorsing human centered automobility; Italdesign Brivido Torino-Berlino cultural roadtrip; Grand Basel, the Art Basel of the automobile; The Automobile by Gio Ponti a milestone car design recreation; Caution: Aggromobile, A semiotic analysis of automobile faces; @objectsofmovement, the Instagram showplace for cars and life around them.
Exhibitions: Fascination Car Design, Italian Embassy, Berlin; Mitomacchina | Legends of the Open Road, Mart, Rovereto; Shape Mission, Meilenwerk, Berlin; Rettet den Panda!, Neue Sammlung, Munich; Dream | Cars of the future since 1950, Agnelli Pavillion, Torino; Tutto Ponti, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; PS: Ich liebe dich, Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf,
Events: 60th Mille Miglia, Brescia-Roma-Brescia; Bank of Austria City of the Future conference, Vienna; Handelsblatt Auto-Gipfel, Frankfurt; Jewels in the Park concours, Schloss Dyck; Test my Ride, Season 1, DMAX; Concorso di Eleganza, Villa d'Este; Golden Steering Wheel, Berlin; Concorso di Eleganza, Poltu Quatu;
Books: Car Design, teNeues, Düsseldorf; Boat Design, teNeues, Düsseldorf; Traffic Design, daab, Cologne; Car Design Europe, teNeues, Düsseldorf; Car Design America, teNeues, Düsseldorf; Car Design Asia, teNeues, Düsseldorf; Making Aston Martin (with Dr.Ulrich Bez), teNeues, Düsseldorf; Design2Go, Handelsblatt Epubli Düsseldorf | Berlin; OAL-BB 50 The Alpina Book, Delius Klasing, Bielefeld.